With food prices soaring in Canada, Quebec restaurant owner Michael Ghorayeb says those in the restaurant industry have two options to stay above water: decrease serving sizes or increase menu prices.
But when Ghorayeb saw the recent eye-popping prices for lettuce, he said he was forced to opt for a third option: take it off the menu completely.
“It’s too big of a price change,” said the owner of Châteauguay’s BLVD Bar & Gril on Montreal’s South Shore.
Lettuce is in short supply in several parts of Canada — and costing a lot more than usual — after drought conditions and crop disease affected supplies from California.
Ghorayeb says he used to buy 24 heads of lettuce for about $50. Now, the same order from his supplier costs more than four times as much, at $220.
“I mean, that type of price increase, if you’re shaving a little bit of iceberg lettuce and putting it on a burger, you’re looking at almost a dollar per portion in cost. It’s completely out of control,” he said.
Tip of the iceberg
Ghorayeb is far from the only victim of the plants’ paucity.
Whether you’re in the market for a head of lettuce, a bag of romaine hearts or a salad kit, warnings of lettuce shortages are popping up in stores around the country, and that is pushing up prices.
Munther Zeid, owner of the Foodfare grocery store chain in Winnipeg, is asking customers to be patient as he doesn’t know when the product will be back on the shelves.
“You order a case or two, you won’t get none. You order five, you might get one,” he said.
Some restaurant chains in Canada, including Subway, Harvey’s and Wendy’s, have also been affected by the shortage and are warning customers on their websites about potential impacts at some locations.
In parts of Canada lettuce is in short supply — and costing a lot more than usual — after drought conditions and disease affected supplies from California.
Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says the problems we’re seeing in Canada — one of the largest importers of lettuce in world — start with issues with our biggest supplier: California.
Charlebois says California’s crops were struck early by drought in September and October — the same weather conditions that led to the suspension of sales of Sriracha hot sauce this summer.
This fall, however, lettuce crops were also hit with disease, which left them wilted in the fields.
“So there’s less output and fewer sales across the world, including exports to Canada, and that’s the main issue right now,” Charlesbois said.
“So in retail, we’re either seeing higher prices or no lettuce at all.”
Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, expects prices to return closer to normal as early as December, when the new harvest from Arizona should arrive. (Submitted by Sylvain Charlebois)
Those reasons have some thinking twice at the grocery store.
“Everything’s so expensive, and to go pay $8 and something, $8.99, for an iceberg? It used to be like $2.99 before. It’s crazy,” said Montreal shopper George Sousa.
He says it’s lead him to change his cooking habits.
The same can be said for Joan Legair, another Montrealer who’s opting for other leafy greens in the meantime.
“When it gets to that price, I do not purchase lettuce. But I might use spinach instead,” she said. “I can get very innovative with my greens and so I use other greens that are more affordable.”
Salad days will return
Charlebois says the lettuce shortage is “certainly one good case study” of the impacts of climate change on the food we eat.
“The virus or viruses that have impacted crops wouldn’t have been there normally without climate change,” he said.
However, he says, there is a light at the end of tunnel this year.
Charlebois says he expects prices to return closer to normal as early as December, when Arizona is expected to take over and start exporting the latest harvest to Canada.
“We should be fine for the holidays, as long as there are no recalls,” he said.
For the time being, restaurateurs like Ghorayeb says he’ll be making his salads using other greens, such as mixed salad or kale, while burgers or any dish that’s typically served with lettuce as a garnish will have to do without.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
